Free Letters in the Attic by DeAnna Julie Dodson

anything that makes you uncomfortable, let me know. I’ll be right over.”
    “I really appreciate it.” She stood up. “Do you need anything else from me?”
    He smiled hopefully. “A cup of coffee might be nice.”
    “I wish I could, Roy.” She made her smile polite but firm. “I’m right in the middle of cleaning my kitchen, and things are really a mess. Will you excuse me?”
    He stood up. “All right. Maybe some other time?”
    “We’ll see.”
    “Meanwhile, I’ll see what I can find out about this note and let you know. You know, by the time this is all over, you and I’ll probably be pretty good friends.”
    “We’ll see.” She opened the front door for him. “Thanks for coming out, Roy.”
    “See you soon, Annie.”
    Once he was gone, she went back to cleaning the kitchen, glad she had a legitimate excuse for hurrying him on his way. One of these days she would have to have a frank conversation with him about what she did and didn’t see in her near future. For now, she was glad to have him on her side.
    ****
    The next day, with Grey Gables clean enough to impress even Gram, Annie decided to try once again to find something about the man Susan had married. Or something, anything, about Susan herself. Maybe she would just try a random search. Who knew what she might get?
    She booted up her laptop computer and opened a search engine.
    “Here goes nothing.”
    She typed in “Susan Morris” and hit Enter.
    Results 1–10 of about 74,600 for “susan morris.” (0.28 seconds)
    There was that haystack again, but she wasn’t ready to abandon Susan quite yet. She tried several different search phrases with similarly overwhelming results.
    “How about ‘Susan Morris’ and ‘Stony Point Maine’?”
    She tapped the keys and got just one result. It was a blog post from May 2002, and the blogger was waxing poetical about the summer of her fifteenth year, and how she had decided to experience everything she could during her lifetime, no matter how long or short it might be. With her brows knit together, Annie scanned the page. What did this have to do with Susan?
    She found her answer about three-quarters of the way down the page.
    I remember it, because that was the same day they were searching for a girl who had drowned off Folly Beach. I didn’t know her, but the newspaper said her name was Susan Morris, and she was from someplace called Stony Point, Maine. I remember her name because I thought then that someone ought to remember it. Remember her. And I thought it was strange that she had come so far just to drown.

    Tears burned in Annie’s eyes. Drowned? Not Susan. Not after everything else that had happened to her. It wasn’t fair.
    Annie blinked hard and read the post again. The blogger gave only a first name, Maggie. Maggie of Maggie’s Musings. No city. No state. No contact information. How long ago had the drowning been? Where was Folly Beach anyway?
    It took only a second to look up Folly Beach, South Carolina. It was not far from Charleston. What newspaper did they have there?
    She typed in “Charleston SC newspaper,” and got the site for The Post and Courier and clicked the “Contact Us” link. There she found a list of names and e-mail addresses for various departments and then, at the bottom, a link that said “Archives.”
    “Oh, please, please be searchable.”
    She clicked the link and found “Search the archives” and “Advanced search.” Yes.
    She typed in Susan’s name, but there were only two results. One was an article about healthy eating and the other was a death notice for a woman aged 83. Not her Susan.
    Entering “Stony Point” returned articles on the local woods, a golf course, and a historic home.
    How could this Maggie have read about Susan in the newspaper if there wasn’t an article? And if there was an article, why wasn’t it in their archives? Wait. The searchable archives went back only as far as 1994. Susan had sold her house in 1989, and maybe